Only Love

There was an area of trampled snow where Sha

A closer examination of the deer tracks gave a picture of animals eating shrubs one minute and ru

Must have been a clean miss, Whip thought.

The rest of the tracks made it clear that Sha

Abruptly Whip flung his head up toward the peak looming above and listened with every sense in his body.

He heard only silence.

Uneasiness blossomed darkly in him. He had a clear, unca

He listened again with an intensity that made him ache. Nothing came to him but the increased wailing of the wind.

Grimly Whip forced his attention back to the tracks in the snow.

Sha

Hell, if she was thinking at all, she never would have left the cabin.

But Whip was too late to do anything about that, just as he had been too late to prevent Sha

A tracking snow might be pretty as the devil’s smile, but like the devil, it hides a lot of mischief.

The tracks led across a boulder-strewn creek where snow hid broken branches and logs slick with snow and water. Sugarfoot was a fine trail horse, but he had to pick his way with care.

Suddenly, spots of blood gleamed brightly among the tracks. The spots dogged one deer’s tracks, sticking with them no matter what the terrain or where the other deer veered off to find cover.

Sha

When Whip saw clear signs that Sha

He kept hearing Sha

Yet he knew that the only sound in the landscape was that of the keening, ice-tipped wind.

The little fool. She could break an ankle ru

Whip didn’t want to think about what would happen after that. He had found more than one man dead of cold or wandering around with no more brains than a bucket of sand, too numbed by cold even to think.

The reckless trail went on, crossing and recrossing the creek as the deer bounded ahead. The signs of blood became more pronounced and frequent. One deer was tiring, struggling to keep up with its companions.

The ravine gouged out by the creek became steeper and the way got more rough. Even the deer that weren’t wounded had a hard time of it. Despite having four agile feet apiece, there were signs that the animals slipped on the rough, snowy terrain almost as often as Sha

Abruptly Sha

Whip stood in the stirrups and looked around. He quickly sported the remains of the deer. Sha

Well, Silent John was good for something, I guess. The hide itself won’t be worth much from all the buckshot holes, and a man will have to be real careful not to crack a tooth on stray chunks of lead, but the meat will fill an empty belly just fine.

Sha

Whip wasn’t on foot.

For a moment he was tempted to push as far up the notch as he could on horseback, just to ease the clammy fear in his gut that something had happened to Sha

Don’t be a bigger fool than you already are, Whip advised himself harshly. The trail ahead is no worse than the one behind. There’s no point making Sugarfoot walk in ice water and take a chance of breaking a leg on those damned slippery rocks just to see Sha

Yet Whip wanted very much to do just that. The uneasiness that had begun shortly after he started tracking Sha

Common sense told Whip that Sha

Instinct whispered a different message, her voice calling wildly to him in the silence.

Abruptly Whip reined Sugarfoot around and headed back down the ravine. Although he was savagely uneasy, he didn’t hurry the big gelding as it picked its way over the uneven ground. He kept reminding himself that by the time he reached the cabin, Sha

But not for Whip.

The thought did nothing to shorten the two miles back to the cabin.

When Whip arrived, there was no smoke coming from the chimney, no scent of biscuits baking — and no tracks coming in from the direction of the notch. The uneasiness that had been riding Whip exploded into raw fear. He spun Sugarfoot around and examined the sparse, windswept forest where Sha

Nothing was moving.

Whip yanked open the buckle on his saddlebags and pulled out a telescoping spyglass. He snapped it out to full length and held it up to his eye. Between spaces in the trees, snow gleamed whitely in the growing light.

Not a single track marred the perfect snow.

17

Whip was nearly all the way to the notch itself before he found Sha

Suddenly there was a dry, cracking sound. The branch splintered and Sha

Only then did Whip see what was wrong. Prettyface had slipped while scrambling across the stony creek. Somehow the dog had managed to wedge a hind foot between two boulders. The boulders were too heavy for Sha

From the looks of the broken branches thrown beyond the creek, she hadn’t had much luck finding a sturdy lever to help her free Prettyface.

When Sugarfoot came to a plunging, snow-scattering stop near the stream, Sha

Whip dismounted in a rush.

«Get out of there before you freeze to death,» he ordered curtly.

If Sha

The branch broke.

Only Whip’s quickness saved Sha